


Written In Lighter Ink

by notionally



Category: GOT7
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, basically they start sleeping together, but don't talk about it or acknowledge what's going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 06:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15723924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notionally/pseuds/notionally
Summary: The first time Jaebum and Jinyoung kissed they were only trainees.But they have always been drawn to each other, and the years that follow are spent dancing around each other, in an on-again/off-again non-relationship. They tell themselves it's just sex, but the way they keep coming back to each other - it has to be something more.It's not quite love, but maybe something close enough to it.





	Written In Lighter Ink

 

I.

 

The first time they kissed it was because they were best friends (or so they told themselves).

They were trainees when it happened. Old enough to know what desire meant, but too young to know what to do about it.

It was difficult not to develop feelings – whatever those feelings were – for someone you spent essentially every minute of your life with. Especially because they had been uprooted from their ordinary lives and thrown into a completely ceaseless world, exhausting physically but also mentally, from the pressure and worry about whether or not they would ever debut.

Neither of them could say which one of them initiated it, not that they ever talked about it. But one minute, they were lying face to face in bed as they so often did, limbs in a tangle, and the next, there was the warm press of lips against lips.

They had been careening towards this inevitability for months now. There had been surreptitious glances, when one of them took their shirt off at the gym, or came out of the bathroom after the shower with a towel wrapped around their hips, or stretched a little too enthusiastically and displayed even just a sliver of skin. Glances that were snatched away far too guiltily to be considered innocent.

And they were good friends – the best of friends. When they weren’t busy training, building up their skills in the blind hope that one day, one day they would be good enough to debut, they would talk. About their families, about the future, about things they were afraid of and things they were afraid to hope for. That was what close friends did – they talked.

That is what they continued to tell themselves, even as the talks stretched later and later into the night, even as they started curling up in the same bed together so they could whisper in the dark. Even when they started falling asleep in the same bed because it was just _too late_ and _too much of a bother_  to climb up or down to the other bunk bed.

Even when they started tracing the other’s skin with their fingertips as they talked, or playing idly with the other’s hair. Even when they started falling asleep with arms wrapped up around each other.

Even when Jaebum started saying things like, “you have such long eyelashes” to Jinyoung, while their faces were so close together he could almost feel the brush of those eyelashes against his skin.

Even when Jinyoung would run his fingers along Jaebum’s cheek and muse about how strong his jawline was.

They were circling closer, and closer, and closer. Two planets trapped in each other’s gravity.

How it finally happened, was something like this:

It was night, late at night. Moonlight streamed in through the windows of their small room, suffusing everything in a pale glow. The world didn’t seem quite real.

They had been talking for a little bit, but the words had slowly started to fall away, the spaces between sentences stretching out like a rubberband. Meanwhile, fingers trailed along arms, faces, shoulder blades, their touches always so soft, barely there, easy to give in to without thinking too much about it.

Then one of their hands strayed too close to the other’s mouth. The pad of someone’s thumb pressed against someone else’s bottom lip. Someone was saying something like, “your lips are so soft” and was met with “yours too” and then someone was tilting their chin up and someone else was leaning their chin down.

It was simple, back then, when it was just the two of them and the moonglow.

 

II.

 

They continued kissing.

Not every night, because training was ramping up as they prepared to debut, and they were filming a drama series, and then they were debuting as a duo, and promotions were even more hectic than they could have imagined. But they were together, the two of them.

But when those nights – too few, too far in between – turned up, nights where they felt a little freer from the pressure of who they were, nights where they felt like they could breathe a little more easily, they would find their way into each other’s arms again. Would seek out each other’s lips in the darkness.

They never talked about it. There were looks, sometimes, eyes meeting across the room and a little frisson of energy shuddering between them. Or little skips of the heart if they moved a little too close, brushed up against each other a little too hard during dance practices.

But no words were ever exchanged, not about – whatever it was that was going on between them. As if speaking about it would shatter the fragile illusion they had constructed. And maybe it would.

So everything remained silent, and soft. Even when their hands started to stray, wandering up and down – _right_ _down_ – each other’s bodies. Even when mouths opened and tongues met, when palms pressed against the growing hardness in each other’s groins, when fingers slipped in past boxers and skin met skin.

It was always so slow, so gentle, so like a dream.

 

III.

 

The dream ended the day – the night – they found out that they were back to being trainees again.

Neither of them spoke all evening, but they were both broken with the grief of having had their careers start up, only to stop again. And when the darkness settled in, they were back where they always found themselves, in each other’s arms. Everything was the same, and yet – everything was different.

Tears were slipping down Jinyoung’s cheeks, though he barely noticed them. Jaebum wiped them away with exquisite care, his thumb pressing down a little too forcefully against Jinyoung’s skin. When they finally kissed, like they both knew they were going to, it was salty.

When Jaebum shifted them so that he was lying on top of Jinyoung, propped up by his elbows, they exchanged a look. Like Jaebum was asking a question.

Jinyoung’s response was to curl his fingers around the hem of Jaebum’s shirt, push the material up over the smooth plane of Jaebum’s torso. He pressed his hands flat against Jaebum’s chest, felt the thundering of his heartbeat beneath his palms.

They had never taken their shirts off before, not in the countless nights they had shared. Not even when they had made each other fall apart in their hands had a single piece of clothing come off. But once one shirt came off it was swiftly followed by the other, then sweatpants were being pulled down, kicked off at the ankles.

Bare chests pressed against each other, lips crashing into lips. There was nothing dream-like about this anymore.

Jaebum dipped his mouth down to Jinyoung’s neck, sucking and biting so hard that it made Jinyoung whimper with pain, with desire. He ground his hips up against Jaebum, relishing in the friction against their boxers, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for either of them, and so fingers fumbled at waistbands, and then they were rubbing directly against each other, and a heat was spreading between them, and they both knew where this were going.

They were prepared, despite having never spoken about it – they knew where things were headed, and so without acknowledging it one of them had gotten the lube and the other had gotten condoms. But they hadn’t expected that this was how it would happen, not under these circumstances.

“Do you want me to –” Jaebum started asking, but then he trailed off, because it was too much. His chest was tight, his breathing laboured. He was asking too much of Jinyoung, asking not just for his body but for _him_. The inescapable mass of his yearning engulfed him.

But Jinyoung was rolling his hips up, and nodding, and breathlessly gasping, “yes”, and not just because his entire body was taut with the force of his desire. He needed Jaebum, not just in this way but in every way. There was an aching hollowness in him that had him almost in tears with anguish.

This was new territory for both of them, but when Jinyoung was ready, and Jaebum slowly – excruciatingly slowly – slipped in, everything seemed to fall into place. Jaebum didn’t move, pressing fervent kisses into the curve of Jinyoung’s neck, waited for him to get used to the sensation. And when Jinyoung finally did start rocking his hips against Jaebum, begging him to move, Jaebum did.

After, as they lay on their backs beside each other, having done their best to clean themselves up with wads of tissues, it took a long, long time for either of them to speak. They stared at the ceiling, each consumed by their own thoughts. It was only when Jaebum twitched his fingers against Jinyoung’s, an unspoken question, that one of them broke the silence.

“I’m sad, hyung,” said Jinyoung. He didn’t move, or turn to look at Jaebum, and Jaebum didn’t turn to look at him either.

The silence stretched on, until Jaebum replied quietly, “me too.”

That night, for the first time since this thing had started between them, they fell asleep not facing each other, but back to back.

 

IV.

 

That was the last time for a long time.

A door had closed in their careers, and maybe it felt like what was in the past was in the past now. Or maybe they had crossed a boundary, a line beyond which they couldn’t act like there was nothing between them. The options were either to acknowledge it, or to stop.

The decision ended up being made for them when they went from two, to seven.

When it had just been the two of them, there had never been any question about how they felt towards each other. They had gravitated towards each other naturally – slowly, for sure, but without hesitation.

Now that they were seven, things weren’t so clear. Attentions were divided, but with that came the question of whether affections had been divided as well. Jinyoung wasn’t even close to being the youngest anymore – Jaebum had Yugyeom to tease, Bambam to get exasperated by, Youngjae to look after. And Jaebum became just one of a number of people Jinyoung could simultaneously cling to and swat away.

But the pull between them was still there – perhaps it always would be – it was just covered up by the cacophony of everything else going on. Easier to ignore.

They ignored it for almost two years.

It wasn’t that anything changed. It was more that everything settled. The members had become more comfortable with each other, and more affectionate. More lines were being blurred, between everyone and everyone else. It wasn’t so difficult, then, to let themselves go – let the current tug them gently back towards each other.

No one thought anything of it when Jaebum would yank Jinyoung down by the back of his neck to tuck him neatly against his chest. Or when Jinyoung let his hands drift low on Jaebum’s waist when they hugged. Or all the times they intertwined their fingers absently when talking, or left hands on thighs for longer than was necessary. Not even when they practically kissed on camera under the pretext of trying to win a game, Jinyoung’s hands clutching at the back of Jaebum’s neck so hard it was like he wanted the two of them to mould into one.

Tension had been building for a while, and it all culminated when – by pure coincidence, or maybe fate – all the members had a day of packed schedules. All except Jaebum and Jinyoung.

It was difficult to keep track of seven people’s constantly shifting agendas, and it was only as the members left the dorm one by one, off to some hosting gig, or some variety show, or some form of specially arranged lesson, that they realised.

They were just the two of them again. Just for one day.

Once they realised, it was hard to ignore. In some ways it was simple, because it felt like the good old days again (not that the current days weren’t good as well, just not in the same way). But because it was so familiar, it was so easy to just slip – slip back into who they had been, way back when. And how they had felt about each other.

The day was spent dancing on the cliff’s edge. It was after dinner, heading out of the kitchen after doing the dishes, that they fell.

There had been too many reasons to touch each other. In too small of a space. Manoeuvring past each other to put dishes away, it had been easy to press up just a little closer than the cramped spaced required, to rest their hands on the curve of each other’s hips for just a little longer than necessary.

And then, as they left, Jinyoung’s name had fallen out of Jaebum’s lips, and Jinyoung had responded with a breathy “hyung”, and suddenly they were flush against each other, Jinyoung with his back against the wall and Jaebum’s hands on his waist.

“Just say the word,” Jaebum had said, his voice low, huskier than Jinyoung had ever heard it, “and I’ll leave.” They were nose to nose, Jaebum’s breath warm against Jinyoung’s lips. “I promise. If you want me to, I’ll leave.”

“I don’t want you to.”

And that was all it took.

Their lips crashed together with a fervour that had only been escalating for all the time they’d spent trying not to give in to how much they craved each other. The kiss was messy, and aggressive, and a little clumsy. They stumbled down the hallway, almost falling into Jinyoung’s room.

There wasn’t a single breath wasted on unnecessary conversation. Not when the members could be coming home at any moment. Not when they were both strung out so tightly with desire that they could burst.

Jaebum did pause for the slightest second before sliding a finger into Jinyoung – they’d only had sex once before, after all – but he was rewarded with an annoyed “for fuck’s sake, Jaebum” and then Jinyoung was doing it himself. And the sight was so filthy that all hesitation evaporated from Jaebum’s mind.

It didn’t take long for them to fall apart.

“I should go back to my room,” is what Jaebum said, after, when they were lying side by side in the dark, the way they once had, years ago.

“You should,” Jinyoung replied.

Neither of them moved.

In the end, Jaebum stayed the night in Jinyoung’s room, their arms curled around each other. It wasn’t unusual – the members all slept in each other’s rooms, in each other’s beds, all the time. The group had always been generous with physical affection. This was just another manifestation of that. Nothing more.

That was what they told themselves that night.

That was what they told themselves all the nights that followed.

 

V.

 

They were allowed to be happy, for a time.

The thing about having sex with someone on the regular, but having to keep it from everyone, is that it becomes a shared secret. And it is difficult for that secret, with all its erotic connotations, not to come to mind every time you look at the other person.

So it was during fan meetings, concerts, variety shows, and more. Their eyes would lock and the image of the other from the night before, eyes shut and mouth open in ecstasy, would come to mind. There would be a shared smile.

The touches were still there, of course, hands always reaching for each other, fingers tangling, palms pressing just slightly too low or slightly too high to be completely platonic.

But ultimately it was the looks, those looks that burned with the heat of their mutual yearning, that got them into trouble.

Their manager never actually said what it was he thought they were doing, never said what it was they had to stop. But the implication was clear. They were getting _too close_ , they had to _tone it down_.

He’d also said, “I don’t care what you do when the cameras aren’t on. But if you can’t stop that from bleeding into the public eye, then you have to stop.”

If asked, they wouldn’t have been able to explain why they didn’t choose to continue what they were doing, and just distance themselves in public. Maybe they thought it would be too difficult – though they all had public personas so why should this be any different?

Maybe it was because of the shame of being found out. Of realising that this thing that neither of them wanted to acknowledge, the thing growing between them, was visible to others. It was physical, of course – lust and want and desire – but it was also becoming something more. Something deeper.

They didn’t talk about stopping, but they didn’t need to.

That night, when they finally shut the door to Jinyoung’s room behind them, they fell into each other’s arms in the silence and the darkness.

And then Jaebum asked, if they could switch. He wanted to feel Jinyoung inside him, he said. _At least once,_ was the unspoken implication. _And this was the last chance they had._

Neither of them had expected how utterly it would wreck them. But even as the sensations, the feelings, the emotions overwhelmed them, all they could do was to choke out each other’s names into each other’s necks, because even though the other members were asleep, they were still there, and this was still a secret.

When they were done, when they both felt like they had been hollowed out from the inside, Jinyoung pressed his face into the curve of Jaebum’s neck, murmured, “I have something I wanted to say to you, but I don’t think I should say it now.”

“Me too,” Jaebum whispered back into Jinyoung’s hair.

“I do, though.”

“I do, too.”

And the unsaid ‘ _I love you’s_ settled, hefty and smothering, in their hearts.

 

VI.

 

In the end there was no escaping each other’s gravity.

As fate would have it, it wasn’t long after that that they were told they would be brought back as a duo, a sub-unit within the larger group.

Their first task – to write some songs together. Which meant not only spending huge amounts of time together, but spending huge amounts of that time being vulnerable with each other. They had never been good at talking about what was going on between them, but through the song-writing they were, in a way, forced to.

They recorded _‘Tomorrow, Today’_ at the same time. That was unusual. The members almost always recorded their parts separately – it was just easier to piece together a polished piece that way. But they both knew that the song wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t singing it together, to each other.

It was with the last words of the song still ringing in their heads that they slipped into Jinyoung’s room that evening. _So tell me which way to go._ _So tell me which way to go._

Just like the first time, it wasn’t clear who initiated the kiss. So many years down the road, it was near-impossible to really tell where one of them ended, and the other begun. Their personalities had been moulded around each other’s, each one a mirror, a counter-weight to the other.

But completely unlike the first time, this kiss wasn’t uncertain. Nor was it filled with desire so strong it could barely be reined it. It was just – solid, and comfortable, and safe. It felt like coming home, like turning the doorknob and stepping through the threshold, and heaving a sigh of relief because finally – finally – you had made it.

“Are we doing this?” Jinyoung asked, his lips still pressed against Jaebum’s.

And Jaebum breathed, “yes” – cupping Jinyoung’s face in his hands and tugging him closer – “yes, yes”.

When Jaebum added, “even though I don’t know what this is,” Jinyoung just smiled, because he didn’t know either, and it had taken them years to figure out that that was _okay_.

 

VII.

 

This is not Love perhaps – Love that lays down

Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown –

But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone

 

\---‘ _Not Love Perhaps_ ’, A. S. J. Tessimond

 

**Author's Note:**

> I - love - this - ship. I am obsessed with it. I have a thousand other fic ideas swirling around in my head and not nearly enough time to get them all down. Also, the lyrics of 'Tomorrow, Today' honestly just fit this idea of the two of them being confused about their relationship so well ugh it is basically the JJP anthem.
> 
> This one is written in a slightly different style to my usual - I hope you still enjoyed it! If you did please do leave a kudo or a comment to let me know what you thought.
> 
> Come be friends with me on the twitter machine because I need people to shout about JJP with @[notionxally](https://twitter.com/notionxally)


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